The Capture

44 entries, in the order they happened: 44 where the historical record answers. The full timeline holds 45 entries for this era; some of them are only there.

Every entry in this era

• 313Edict of Milan; Cunctos populosThe Edict of Milan makes the faith legal in 313; by 380 an imperial decree makes it the empire's religion and calls everyone else a heretic.
• AD 325The council at NicaeaConstantine calls the bishops to Nicaea, where they write a creed declaring the Son of one substance with the Father: for the first time an emperor…
• AD 330ConstantinopleConstantine dedicates a new capital on the Bosporus, Constantinople, the New Rome. It is the empire's seat in the East for more than a thousand…
• c. AD 340s (Ezana reigned c.…Ezana of Aksum takes the crossEzana, king of Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands, was baptised by his former tutor Frumentius, a Christian from Tyre whom Athanasius of Alexandria…
• AD 367Athanasius lists the twenty-sevenIn his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius of Alexandria lists the twenty-seven books of the New Testament exactly as the canon stands today, the first…
• c. 405 – 476The Vulgate; the West fallsJerome finishes the Vulgate, the whole Bible in Latin, as Rome's western empire empties out: enclosure beginning, the whole Bible in one language…
• AD 476The last emperor in the WestThe Germanic general Odoacer deposes the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus and sends the imperial regalia to Constantinople.
• 529 – 553Justinian closes the AcademyJustinian closes the Academy of Athens and gathers school, law and altar under one throne.
• c. 544–585Vivarium; Gregory the GreatCassiodorus stores the books at his monastery of Vivarium, and Gregory the Great takes over Rome's government in the West.
• AD 605Office by examinationChina's Sui dynasty begins choosing officials by written examination on the classics.
• AD 499; 628Zero becomes a numberIndian mathematicians write numbers by place value (Aryabhata, 499), and in 628 Brahmagupta gives the first rules for calculating with zero as a…
• c. 650 (during Uthman's…Uthman's standard codexUnder the third caliph, Uthman (644–656), a single standard copy of the Qur'an was compiled from the manuscripts kept by Hafsa and copies were sent…
• AD 636–651Persia falls to the caliphateArab armies defeat the Sasanians at Qadisiyyah and Nahavand, and the last shah, Yazdegerd III, is killed in 651.
• 691–692 (72 AH, by its…The Dome of the Rock and its inscriptionThe Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount; an inscription inside dates it to 72 AH (691–692), and it is the…
• 731 – 850The Donation of Constantine; the False DecretalsTwo forgeries shape the medieval church: the Donation of Constantine, a fake deed granting the popes power over the West, and the False Decretals…
• c. 790–792 (the murals' own…Maya tribute at BonampakThe murals of Structure 1 at Bonampak in Chiapas, painted about 790–792 for the court of a lord subordinate to Yaxchilan, open in Room 1 with the…
• 800Charlemagne crowned; the papacy as family propertyOn Christmas Day 800 the pope crowns Charlemagne, joining throne and altar; then the papacy is held as family property for two generations: the seat…
• 813The Council of ToursThe Council of Tours orders sermons in the common Roman tongue and in German, because the people no longer understand Latin: the church's own filed…
• 868 (the date in its colophon)The Diamond Sutra, the oldest dated printed bookA woodblock-printed scroll of the Diamond Sutra, over five metres long, carries a colophon dated 868 saying that Wang Jie had it made for free…
• 909 (10.4.0.0.0)The last Long Count dateThe last known monument dated in the Maya Long Count was raised at Toniná in Chiapas for the period ending 10.4.0.0.0, in AD 909; the earliest known…
• c. AD 500 (the Talmud's…The scribes count the lettersThe Babylonian Talmud, compiled about AD 500, says the first sages were called soferim, 'those who count', because they counted every letter of the…
• 11th–15th centuries (the city)Great Zimbabwe, and who was allowed to have built itGreat Zimbabwe, a stone city built by ancestors of the Shona between the 11th and 15th centuries, was the centre of a trading state based on cattle…
• 1023 (the Song state takes…The state prints money: SichuanFrom the late 10th century financial houses in Sichuan issued paper notes (jiaozi) against deposits of coin and silk; when many failed and could not…
• 1044The first gunpowder formula: the Wujing ZongyaoThe Wujing Zongyao, a military compendium compiled for the Song court by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du and others and completed in 1044, records the first…
• 1068 (al-Bakri's Book of…Ghana's gold and salt, describedIn 1068 the Andalusian geographer al-Bakri, working from merchants' reports, described the king of Ghana taxing every donkey-load of salt (one gold…
• 1075Dictatus papae and CanossaDictatus papae claims the pope may depose emperors, that all princes shall kiss his feet, and that he may release subjects from their oaths; in 1077…
• 1075 – 1302The medieval prototypeThe medieval prototype: one authority above every throne, one law above every land, a man in God's seat, and a switch, excommunication and interdict…
• 1095 → 1517Indulgences soldIndulgences, the church's remission of punishment for sin, go on sale: salvation priced, the one debt in the record that was already settled, sold…
• 1096 – 1204The Rhineland massacres and the crusadesCrusading mobs fall on the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Cologne in 1096, destroying most of them, before the army is anywhere near…
• c. 1050–1350CahokiaNear today's St. Louis, Cahokia grows into the largest city north of Mexico, perhaps ten to twenty thousand people around Monks Mound, the largest…
• 1119The Templars' creditThe Knights Templar, a papal order, run an early international system of letters of credit; France's Philip IV destroys them in 1307 while in their…
• 1139The councils on usuryFrom 1139 to 1311 five church councils call lending at interest a sin, and one admits in its own text that the practice is so rooted that many treat…
• c. 1140Canon law and Unam SanctamChurch law is organised and made binding across kingdoms, and Unam Sanctam declares that submitting to the pope is necessary for the salvation of…
• c. 1150 – 1187The Toledo translatorsAt Toledo the Greek and Arabic learning comes back into Latin; Gerard of Cremona goes for Ptolemy's astronomy and stays to translate some seventy…
• c. 1173 – 1184Valdes of Lyon condemnedValdes of Lyon gives away his property, has the gospels put into the common tongue, and preaches without a licence; in 1184 he is condemned.
• c. 1190–1290 (the second…The last lands: East Polynesia and AotearoaRadiocarbon dating shows that the islands of East Polynesia, New Zealand, Hawai'i and Rapa Nui among them, were the last habitable places on earth to…
• c. 1181–1221Lalibela's rock churchesIn the Ethiopian highlands eleven churches are cut down into the living rock under King Lalibela, by tradition a New Jerusalem.
• 1204–1206Genghis Khan, and his law written downTemüjin unites the Mongol tribes and is proclaimed Genghis Khan in 1206. He has the Mongol language written down for the first time, in the Uyghur…
• 1258Baghdad sacked; the House of Wisdom lostIn 1258 the Mongol prince Hülegü, grandson of Genghis Khan, took Baghdad, executed al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid caliph, massacred a great part of…
• 1274 and 1281Gunpowder bombs off Japan: the Mongol invasionsKublai Khan's fleets attacked Japan in 1274 and 1281; the Yuan troops threw exploding gunpowder shells, and a hollow ceramic bomb from the 1281 fleet…
• c. 1270–1309The largest land empireWhen Kublai Khan completes the conquest of Song China in 1279, the Mongol empires reach from the Pacific to Eastern Europe: about a sixth of the…
• 1324Mansa Musa's gold in CairoMansa Musa of Mali made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 with a caravan chroniclers put at 60,000 people; his spending and gifts in Cairo were…
• 1347–1351 (the plague)The Black Death as a resetPlague spread along the trade routes from Asia to the Mediterranean and Europe, killing about 25 million people in Europe between 1347 and 1351 by…
• 1377Jikji: metal movable typeJikji, an anthology of Zen Buddhist teachings printed in Korea in 1377, is the oldest surviving book printed with movable metal type, 78 years before…